


Monster Mash

by birdslikeoranges



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Abortion mention, Adultery Mention, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Cuz Hermann is nasty, Excessive use of 'darling', Gore, Guillermo will regret writing such thorough psych profiles, Hurt/Comfort, Kaiju Newton Geiszler, M/M, Relationship Discussions, Sad Backstories, Slow Burn, Teeth kink, Two shut-ins doing their best w feelings, cuz that's my kink, recreational drug use mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-01-04 13:19:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18344480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdslikeoranges/pseuds/birdslikeoranges
Summary: You'd think there would be an opportunity to rest your weary bones after you nuke an interdimensional portal and save your entire species, right?Aparently nobody told Newt's bones.(Inspired by otachistongue's art)





	1. Roll The Tape/Alone Together

**Author's Note:**

> [pops out from my lurker's corner] HEy Newmann tag, do you still like grossly detailed, slowburn, kaiju!newt psychoromance? You better cuz i have like 3 chapters of one for you, fresh and totally unbeta'd. Yes all the chapter names are gonna be song titles cuz I'm That Bitch™ (songs by Adam Tell/Fall Out Boy respectively)

As Newt steps back into his and Herman's now-defunct lab after saving the world, his skin _itches._ His whole _body_ itches, down deep into his bones. He claws at his technicolor flesh, growling under his breath because his nails don't feel sharp enough to tear through to the source of the itch.

And Hermann isn't helping.

It's not just that he keeps looking over with that aggravated little pout he always directs at Newton, but now with deep-set worry where there's usually fire in his eyes; it's that Newt can _feel_ that concern as though he manufactured it in his own mind, far different from the impersonal hatred and robotic determination of their late nemeses still seeping out of his psyche like tar through a pinhole. He can also feel the... _that_ echoing through his brain like klaxon bells and old tartan and new white chalk, and Newt would love nothing more than to maybe discuss whatever _that_ could possibly turn into if it wasn't for every _god_ damn _fuck_ fucking _inch_ of his stupid body feeling like it was twelve sizes too _small!_

"Herm I'm gonna need you not to look at me right now."

Herman puffs out his cheeks and pouts like he always (only) does with Newt. "I've told you so many times, and I would've figured now that you've literally _felt_ how much it annoys me you would--"

"Yeahyeahyeah you're father always called you Herm and you _hate_ it, I'm _sorry,_ it was a force of habit but Hermann _please_ you gotta just not look at me right now, I really can't handle it with the you and the feelings and my stupid _fucking_ skin right now Jesus _Christ_ oh my _God._ "

Newt claws at the front of his scalp and slams up against the chalkboard wall of Hermann's lovingly sculpted equations in an attempt to reach the middle of his back at the same time.

"Newton no, absolutely not! Get away from there this instant, what has gotten into you?"

Newt lets out a growl almost like a scream before wrenching away from numerals he knows for a _fact_ Hermann had already memorized the moment he thought them up. "It's my skin! It all just itches _everywhere_ and it won't _stop!_ If you--actually please, could you...?" He stops scratching just long enough to flail in the general direction of his back before his nails are practically magnetized to his forehead.

Hermann huffs (just for show) and stomps over to Newt before placing his fingers on Newt's back and digging in. Newt's reaction is borderline pornographic.

"Shit," he gasps, "Jesusshitdamn okay go lower." Herman obeys. "Lower." Herman obeys again, tentatively this time. "A little lower."

"This is a cheap, ridiculous prank, even for you--"

Newt roars again, "Her--I swear to _fuck_ I mean it, it's my tailbone it's practically on fire! Please just itch it I _swear_ , I swear."

Herman huffs again but digs his fingers back into Newt's spine before immediately pulling away again.

"Newton something's swelling."

"What's swell--ow!" Newt looks to his hands in confusion before screaming at the bloody mess of loose hair and peeled fingernails that greet him.

∆∆∆

The two of them practically sprint to the medical wing, Newton's hands gripped desperately in Hermann's to keep him from scraping at his skin, even though it feels like exactly what his deepest instincts are telling him is right, all the way down in the atoms of his cells.

The hospital is beeping and screaming and stuffed with medical staff buzzing around the wounded from their recent victory. Hermann screams desperately at a startled doctor Newt remembers as Zhao Huan from his first post-Drift checkup and he shoots her as apologetic a look as he can manage while the three of them scramble to the nearest empty bed. Dr. Zhao calls out for a nurse while Hermann keeps his steady hold on Newton's spasming hands.

"What have you done this time, Geiszler?" Dr. Zhao asks in a deep, heavily accented voice as she dons her stethoscope.

Newt laughs. "I hate to tell ya doc, but I drifted with a kaiju again--" Dr. Zhao shoots up a stern glance from her watch. "--and Dr. Gottlieb helped me." her deadly gaze moves to Hermann and he feels the desperate need to apologize for the abandoned extraction machine prototype that had been among what Newton had destroyed to create his rudimentary Pons device.

_"Dude, you and I both know what you're building is a milking machine and honestly it's probably why your wife finally left you." Hermann remembers throwing a screwdriver and having it sail just over instinctively slouched brunet curls to shatter a very expensive, thankfully empty specimen tank._

"Huan don't rip his head off. I can _legit_ promise that it was to righth the courth of worlth hithburry thith thime"

In the middle of his defense, all four of Newt's upper incisors push free of their roots to plop into his lap. Newt's raw fingers fly up to meet fresh gums and pull away a sample of purplish blood with a barely perceptible glimmer. Dr. Huan jerks away to gather gauze and scream out once more for nurses. Newt's eyes dart to Hermann's, which look almost as horrified and confused as Newt feels in that moment.

He inspects the rest of his teeth with his tongue and fingers to find most of them loosened and protruding further than usual from his gums. Huan rips his frantic hands away and down to his side. Newt clenches his jaw reflexively as if to help keep his remaining teeth in place.

"I'm disintegrating," he lisps. "That stupid baby. Those stupid _monsters._ You were right Herman, my kaiju obsession is gonna kill me."

Herman takes Newt's hand back into his and looks him sternly in the eye. "Don't you say that. Your Kaiju obsession saved the entire _bloody_ planet and I'm going to make inarguably sure that _you_ are included in that statistic."

Newt tries to grin stupidly and prods Herman's knee gently with his foot. "So you _do_ like-like me."

"That's not funny."

"I'm sorry," Newt twists his hands to squeeze Hermann's comfortingly before a gaggle of nurses burst in to take his remaining vitals and ask him a flurry of questions in a multitude of languages. Hermann tries to nail his iron will to Newt's bedside but is eventually ushered into a corner to grind the end of his cane into the floor and clench his jaw in tandem with Newt's.

"It started itching two hours ago. _Everywhere._ No, no redness but Hermann said he felt a weird lump above my ass--?"

The nurses turn him on his side before he's finished his sentence. There's a few gasps and a wave of concerned muttering as Dr. Zhao prods at the protrusion.

Newt feels it twitch.

One of the nurses screams and has to be escorted to a bed of his own before he collapses.

"You are in _so_ much trouble, Geiszler." Zhao tuts under her breath.

∆∆∆

Newt is put under quarantine. They allow Dr. Gottlieb to stay and watch over Newt, only because he seemed contaminated but still coherent enough to report on Newt's condition (and also because he had covertly smeared some of Newt's blood near the corner of his mouth in the midst of the chaos as a preemptive persuasion. Newt saw him do it. The only thing that had stopped him from vaulting into the corner and snogging it off Hermann's face was the sharp ache developing in his hips and one look from Hermann that told him it would be unnecessary--not to mention _wildly_ inappropriate--to express such desires aloud.)

Clean-suited nurses enter periodically to take his hair or blood or tissue for analysis but seem unwilling (perhaps unable) to tell them what their tests were revealing. The most they can pry out of one of them is something about possible radiation poisoning before she quickly pulls the needle from Newt's arm and scurries from the room.

"You'll have to wait for Dr. Zhao."

So they sit for thirty minutes in suffocating silence broken by Newt's grunting at each new ache that forms on his body. His jaw, his throat, his hands, his head, his spine, his legs, his brain, his skin, even his fucking _dick_ had all seemed to start sliding apart in a certain way that he doesn't know how to explain whenever Hermann's dark eyes beg him for answers. Eventually, all he can think to say is some garbage v0.0.1 of a paper recounting his most recent observations on the arrangement of cone cells in Kaiju retina that manages to sustain them for another hour or so.

"…and when you start getting into the possibilities of how the--supposedly--multiple visual cortices of the superposition and camera-lens eyes could manage to not only coexist but *cooperate*-- it really makes me wanna see--"

The door opens and a suited up Dr. Zhao bustles in with dark circles under her eyes, hair tousled and damp with sweat.

"Thank you both so much for your patience while we--"

"Tell us what's wrong with Newt." Hermann barks with a crack in his voice. Newt slips their hands together and squeezes tight.

Dr. Zhao nods solemnly and reaches up to fix her hair before remembering the helmet. She clasps her hands behind her back instead. "We… can't 100% identify the exact cause of what's happening to you. Every sample we've taken has extremely elevated levels of white blood cells along with…system-wide radiation spikes that have been steadily increasing with each new sample. Our main concerns now are with potential cancer development or--"

She continues on while the two men stare in silence for very different reasons. Hermann's face falls and falls until he can't seem to hear Huan anymore, so he looks to Newt, but he too looks to be fully at a loss until a glance at Hermann's dumbfounded grief breaks him out of his stupor.

"Can you tell the species?"

Huan blinks, "I'm s--? Of what?"

"The cancer."

"What spec--What did you two--" she shuts her eyes for a moment and definitely swears (or perhaps prays) in Mandarin, "Not from the size of the samples we took."

"Are they big enough for a comparative analysis?"

"Th--Yes, but I can't imagine what we'd--"

Newt turns to Dr. Gottlieb and clamps down further onto his hand. "We need to call Hannibal Chau's people. Immediately."


	2. In The Woods Somewhere/Walk Me Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cracks knuckles* Alright this one is where some plot happens so it's a doozy. Please heed the tags, as always!
> 
> Chapter title songs by Hozier and P!nk

* * *

It's unclear if the hassle of fitting Newt's hoarde of equipment into the standard-issue military hospital suite was larger than the argument that proceeded it (spearheaded by one engineer who could not care _less_  what Newton thought would help more than lying down and getting a proper night's rest for once in his manic, brilliant life) but eventually half of their lab stands like disciples come to worship the figure perched over his microscope scouring glowing bits of himself and the day-glo carnage being expertly butchered on Hong Kong's beaches by a surprisingly un-eaten (if somewhat sticky) Hannibal Chau.

After five minutes of dead silence, Newt jerks back with a defeated sigh and burries his aching eyes in his bandaged hands. "It's them, Hermann."

The other man is up from his corner chair in a half second, poised to drag the biologist away from his old toys and this room that isn't theirs, "Who's what? What's it? Who's them?"  
  
Peeking out from his fingers Newt mutters, "Kaiju."

Hermann chokes. "…In what sense."

"Me."

"Newton _please_  don't do that. _Speak_  to me."

Newt slams his head with his palm. He does it again before Hermann can move to stop him. "They're _in me,_  Hermann." He whimpers, "Or they _are_  me. I'm…becoming them? Or one of them." He scratches at his forehead where he'd hit it, "I'm kaiju now, is the short of it."

Hermann's hands recoil from Newt for just a second before he bats Newt's itching hand away and secures it with it's twin in a gently squeezing grip. "What does that mean in the short term? For you, for…us?"

Newt looks down at his hands where the nailbeds have started healing over into smooth pink skin, his knuckles reddening and flesh going bone-white. "I'm not sure. Obviously there's something really major going down on a physical level for me, so I'm going to look into the physiological side, get the hospital to run some more tests and run some of my own. Since you've been exposed to me, you'll need to run the same gauntlet to see whether or not you're going to experience any similar changes and at what rate."

He looks up from his mental catalogue of data to cradle Hermann's cheek in his hand, thumbing under his blood-ringed eye. "This is super creepy, but I kinda hope we get to stay a matching set."

Hermann chuckles sweetly, pressing a light kiss to the other man's palm. As soon as he realizes he's done it, his eyes dart to Newt with a hundred versions of the same question in his eyes.

Newt huffs a laugh. "You saw the way I looked at you earlier. We might as well before I get some sort of fucked up proboscis or something."

With an expression that could only be described as 'devout,' Hermann trails his hands up Newt's arm, up his neck, and cradles his face gingerly as to avoid exacerbating his aching jaw. He brings their mouths together in a gentle press of lips. They barely breathe, both experiencing and processing the data point one moment at a time.

On the disconnect two eternal seconds later, Newt just manages to whisper ' _wow_ ' before he grabs Hermann and _kisses_  him, the way he likes it, the way they _both_  like it because G _od_  they really were meant for each other this whole time. Hermann worms his tongue under and around Newton's the way someone once had in an old neon-soaked dive-- _So that's where you went, you perv_  Newt chuckles to himself-- and then sucks _hard_  and Newton is clenching his fists in soft brown locks and shuddering out a nevertheless grateful moan. They pull themselves flush and get lost in the white noise of mutual relief at this wonderful new memory bank of data until there's an overenthusiastic _nudge_  and a sucking _give_  that has them jumping apart while Hermann spits out two of Newton's evacuated teeth into his palm.

Newt swears and covers his blood-purpled mouth. Herman stares at the tiny chips of bone and isn't sure whether he should pocket them or cast them as far away from himself as he can and _run._

"I'm sorry," Newton says, pulling his hands away and to his neck to itch nervously. "I'm sorry Herms, this is awful--I'm so awful, you don't have to stay here. Don't feel obligated to help me just because-"

Hermann shushes Newt with a finger to his lips. "I'm not here out obligation, Newt. I'm here because I want to be. I've known you for a decade now and this is not the most disgusting thing you've done by a far, far margin. Up to and including eating a day-old burrito that had Kaiju blood spilled on it."

"Hey, I ran it through the sanitizer!"

"I'm still embarrassed for you that you think that's the point of that argument. Now please give me something so I can stop holding your teeth."

Newt sticks his tongue out at Hermann but retrieves a petri dish. He scratches out a catalogue label for the container and sets them with the rest of his purpling detritus.

∆∆∆

Hermann hits a breaking point two days in.

Having his new quasi-lover snog radioactive teeth into his mouth was one thing, but then wide patches of dead white skin began bulging and cracking across most of Newt's body, arms, legs, neck. They don't hurt him physically, but they're a hindrance to his studies as his hands began shedding onto his equipment. Hermann finally had to offer his assistance yesterday afternoon when Newt had ruined the same slide three times in a row.

"Ah… Newton, allow me to top that off for you, go ahead and get those other samples ready."

Newton had looked up and stared at him for several seconds, still wide-eyed and wincing with frustration as though unable to process why Hermann had spoken until his lip had ticked up at the corner and he'd yelped, "Sure, Herms--mmman! Always knew I'd make a biologist of you someday."

Then there had been shallow breaths; hearty clearings of the throat. Hermann eventually offered him a heather grey hankerchief with the most darling little white daisies on it into which Newt had snorted a horrific, phlegmy sneeze into ("I really don't mind, Newton. That's what it's for.") that returned as a hacking cough every other minute or so. Newt tries to hide when red starts seeping into the linen and when that doesn't work, he turns that lopsided, toothless grin on Hermann and tells him "I'm gonna make this okay" and it takes all Hermann has to believe him while he hunts for live skin to slide butterfly needles into ("Platelets off the charts." Newt mutters to himself , "Phosphorous and silicone rising significantly, but seemingly no adverse effect on viability of surrounding tissue.") and helps slough hard to reach skin in the moments they can't work.

His joints were the next to go. They woke this morning to find Newt's fingers stretched and bruised and stiff, thick blisters forming on each bend, black claws sprouting from the tips of his fingers, skin cracking open dead and leafing off like so many blank white pages because it turns out _Newt can't write anymore._  It's not until two admirably determined but woefully unintelligible pages are produced that Hermann has the resolve to speak up once more.

"Darling, might I offer to transcribe those for you?"

And Newt froze again. For several very long seconds. Dropped his pen. Turned to Hermann.

"Did you just call me 'darling'?"

"Y--if you don't like it, I won't--"

Newt reaches out for Herman's hand but stops short at his own open sores, "No it's fucking _adorable_  it's just. I've never had a pet name before." He scrunches his nose, "that sounded depressingly lonely. Never had one I _liked_  before." He pops a kiss under Herman's chin. "Thanks. Also: yes, please, these pages are total garbage."

Hermann chuckles, dazed as usual by the biologist, and plants himself beside the microscope to record Newt's flurry of observations.

But then Newt had started _stretching_  earlier this evening; performing some sort of reaching, twisting yawn with his spine that looks wholly inhuman. Hermann had someone fetch his physical therapy equipment to perhaps assist, but to no avail.

"I can't make my bones go back to where they were, but I don't know how to get them where they need to be cuz I don't know where that _is._ "

And that's when Hermann's brain stops short.

_Newt doesn't know what he's turning into_

_Who **knows** what he could turn into?_

_He could become a monster._

_He could lose himself._

_You're going to lose him._

_**You're going to lose Newt.** _

Hermann gasps and lurches out of his chair into the wall. He tries to look at Newt but all he can see is the image of once shining green eyes dulled to a bestial, mindless hunger, staring at Hermann with hate and malice in two thin, black slits and suddenly he *can't* look at Newt. Not even to dash his suspicions where they sit. If he looks at Newt and sees his nightmare take flesh, he--he doesn't know what he would do. Doesn't _want_  to know.

**_Can't._ **

"Hermann? Baby--"

"I'm so sorry Newton," he gulps out, "I'm… going to need a minute alone, I think. I will…I'm going to come back. I p...promise. I _promise_  you. But I..." Hermann trails off. He can't think of a single thing to say that isn't just bursting into a mad fit of giggles so he darts from the room before he can make another sound.

He limps through the hallways, panting with the effort of keeping his furious pace. He shoves through doors and hallways until he stumbles into some sort of lounge. The first thing he sees is a water cooler and he nearly knocks it over in his haste to get a drink...two...five to catch his breath and slow his mind. He almost rests his hip on the wall when a mumbled "Dr. Gottlieb?" from the couch just beside him makes the cup fly from his hands in shock and bounce far too loudly on the cement floor. He turns to face Dr. Zhao, her eyes blurry but awake enough to recognize that he needed to be acknowledged.

"Ah. Doctor. Good to see you again, nice to see you've found a chance to rest, you looked like you could---ah. That is to say--oh, I'm sorry I'll let you sleep you've had such a long--"

"Dr. Gottlieb is there something you need to discuss with me?" Zhao rubs the sleep from her eyes, "Has Newt's condition worsened at all?"

Hermann shudders as those _eyes_  flash through his mind once more. "His… DNA has been corrupted by Otachi's."

Huan bolts upright at that and has her glasses on and data pad in hand almost before Hermann sees her move. "Corrupted how?"

He shrugs, shakes his head. "I couldn't tell you, Newt's the biologist here. I'm so entirely out of my depth. I've no idea how I'm supposed to tell him it's all going to be all right."

Huan peers at him over her data pad, "What makes you think it _isn't_  going to be all right?"

Hermann stares at her. "Did you…His _DNA_ \--"

"Didn't seem to be actively killing him for the time being. I've read Newt's reports. Have you noticed any cognitive changes?"

The kiss. That smile. That blind, stupid faith in everything he sees that led him to pioneer the study of beautiful, hellish, impossible beasts so that Hermann's beloved, equally impossible machines could more expertly dispatch them and drag back what remained for Newt to fawn over and finally make sense of.

"…No."

She arches a brow. "Sounds like you're the one who needs some assurance." She pats the sofa next to her, ties her hair up out of her face. Hermann hesitates. She rolls her eyes. "If you'd rather strain that leg, don't let me stop you."

Hermann grinds his cane. Weighs his options. Splits the difference and sits in the chair oposite her. Huan narrows her eyes at this but doesn't comment further.

"Dr. Gottlieb, how did you get your degree?"

"TU Berlin in applied sciences and eng--"

"I didn't ask _what_  you got. I asked _how_  you got it."

 _He's twelve, third-hand jumper sleeve sliding down to catch on metal, shaking fingers twisting and yanking at the strap of his awful brace to keep from letting any tears out over the papers on Ms. Addgate's desk; slashed as red as his father's face will be if he brings a Phys exam home looking like_ that, _but her voice is soft._

_"You've been blessed with a brilliant mind for numbers, Hermann. I know you've memorized the formulas already, so you don't have to prove you know them by trying to use all of them in every equation. Just focus on the variables you need to find, ignore the ones you don't, and--"_

"Working the problem."

"And what is the problem now?"

"Newt is…" he peeters off.

"Precisely. You don't know what he is. And you know as well as I do that this is outside of any realm of normalcy, so the only ones who know which direction 'forward' is so we can move towards it is our theoretical science division." She points two fingers at Hermann, "Half of which is you. So not to be coarse, but you need to go do your job, Dr. Gottlieb"

"But what if he's--"

"Then you'd better run your ass back in there and help him before he does."

Hermann heaves at the very notion. He gives her a short nod, jolting to his feet and bursting out of the lounge just as he had entered it. Huan is snoring again before the latch clicks shut.

It takes Hermann considerably longer to be directed back to their room. His heart begins pounding when the door is finally within sight, crescendoing as he twists the knob and throws the door open to an empty bed.

A beloved Thermocycler smashed into the wall.

Newton splayed over the ground, hands and face dripping garnet.

"My God!" Hermann shrieks, falling to his knees at his side. "Darling, are you alright? What happened?"

Newt flinches away from Hermann's hands. "It's nothing, I was just--it was stupid. I should've just..." He turns his head away and pinches the now thouroughly disgusting hankie to his face. "You don't have to worry about me."

Hermann's breath hitches. There's a horrible sharp _yank_  deep in his chest and he recalls a dozen memories that aren't his own.

_"You'll be okay in the appartment alone for a couple days, won't you honey?"_

_"Geiszler, you're old enough now that you can't bother other people with shit like this."_

_"Fuck, I'm sorry baby but I gotta be frank with you; I just didn't sign up for any of this shit."_

He sighs his way through the sob trying to rip it's way out of his chest and turns Newt's face back to him. "Yes I do, darling. You've fallen, quite spectacularly, from your hospital bed, and your face is covered in your radioactive, mutating blood. This is the perfect scenario in which I have every right to worry over you and I will take my chances whenever I get them."

Newt only laughs in return, eyes still fixating on everything but Hermann.

"Newton it's okay, you can tell m--"

"I just freaked out a little cuz you, like, _sprinted away in fear_  and I tried to go after you but I twisted my big dumb fucking long foot-claw-thing and slammed my stupid face into my fucking 'cycler--I'm fine, it's just a nosebleed--and I was just kinda laying on the floor here regretting every decision I've ever made 'cause I didn't wanna loose you too."

Hermann frowns and his eyes scour over Newt's visibly straining but properly angled boots before flashing to the green glow of the still-whirring Thermocycler before landing back on Newt at a total loss.

Newt twitches his arms and gestures at his torso where a button had popped off somewhere in the fall, revealing his upper chest. Hermann notices his once dazzling tattoos fading and flaking off just like the rest of him.

"I spent two summers fuckin' killing myself to pay for my first tattoo," he turns his right arm to indicate the flaking remains of the once-vibrant blue insectoid creature Hermann barely remembers seeing on the news feeds, "Every day in my Uncle's music store so he'd pay for half, and evenings playing for tips in a shitty little jazz club on the edge of Berlin for the rest. I even turned a couple tricks, but I wasn't any good at it so I just stuck to keyboard."

He picks at an edge of skin on his wrist and tugs it free, taking off a bit more swirling orange with it. He chuckles darkly and flicks it to the floor, "and my mother, she always said I was gonna regret spending all that money just to have them look like shit when I'm old and I told her I only couldn't wait to finally look more like my dad's side than hers," he winces at the old barb. Hermann hears the car door slamming and tires squealing off to another six month opera season. "Uncle Illia was just glad she stopped calling the house phone every day after that. I was too once the scabbing finally cleared up, but now it's all gone anyway, so." He shakes his head and shrugs, still picking at his arm.

"But when you ran, you had the same look on your face you'd made right before you chunked after the drift and I just thought--" he shakes his head again and, for once, can't think of anything to say.

Newt still won't look at Hermann. He can't take it.

"What, you thought I would abandon my first budding relationship in seven years along with a relatively stable work environment just because your _legs_  aren't quite working right?" He gently raps Newt's skull with the grip of his cane and then sticks out a hand to help the other to his feet, "What did I ever do in our eleven beautiful years of friendship to suggest that I was such an arrogant prick?"

Newt hums in good humor and accepts the hand to launch himself up and pivot with his good leg to land widthwise across the bed. He doesn't move as Hermann unties his shoes, dumps out the bloody toenails onto the desk, and pretends not to notice how much longer and more…dextrous Newt's toes had become. Only once Hermann has removed Newt's tie and tucked the hospital sheets firmly around his legs does he _finally_  look at Hermann, green eyes just shy of spilling over, carefully searching brown for an acceptable answer.

"What did the Kaiju's mind look like to you?"

Hermann shudders to think back. _A thousand minds swirling like blacksilveryellow moths, a screaming cloud rolling into his brain like tires on tarmac to avoid an oncoming winter storm. Blinding flashes of whitegreengold and flecks of bright redcopperaqua slashing and lunging at each other in a stunning epileptic clash of consciousness and instinct, both careening towards his mind at the speed of thought to be the one who gets it **first--**_

"I thought it was beautiful."

Newt shakes his head. "No, _I_  thought it was beautiful. You hate the kaiju! You've always hated the kaiju and you hate how much I love them. I felt you, you backed off and went rabbit hunting right from the get-go. I thought we were gonna destabilize--and I can't believe you went right for my college sex life, that is so fucking predictable from a German private school kid," he punches Hermann's arm playfully, Hermann smiles and lightly shoves him in return.

"But we didn't. We held steady through the full sequence. Our minds stayed whole, we got enough information and retained enough sanity to _relay_  said information and save the fucking _world_ , Hermann. And I couldn't for the life of me suss out what had done it until this very moment:

"It was you, Hermann." he says, gingerly cupping the other's face in small but deadly half-grown claws. "You were what carried me over the bridge, and then _you_  got the information filtered through your connection to me. You just wanted to help me get inside the Kaiju's mind so your brain was only focused on me--on getting me in and out of there alive," he gives Hermann a peck on the lips too short to relay the immense pride and admiration he feels. "But I experienced a full immersion into the construction of another being. I got every memory it had, including genetic memory! It's like _Chamber of Secrets_  all over again! I'm your nearly-headless Nick!"

 "Newton I cannot count all the ways that that reference does not make sense ton me."

"Justin Finch-Fletchley? Second Harry Potter with the big snake and the ghost? I sucked Dustin Müeller's dick on graduation night 'cause he looked kinda like Tom Riddle so I _know_  you know the movie. Anyway. I think my stem cells might remember receiving information from the kaiju's Hox gene to create a Kaiju-shaped thing."

Hermann grinds at his bloodshot eyes with the heels of his palms and drops onto the bed beside Newton. "I know that you know that I don't understand what a Hox gene is. Use my brain, Newton. Talk to me like a mathematician, not a biologist."

Newt flaps his mouth open and makes several vague, aborted shapes with his hands before asking, "You remember… when your dad made you help him build that godawful media center?"

Hermann nods, turning his nose up instinctively the thought of the blond-wood attrocity.

"Okay, so the instruction booklet that came with it is the 'Hox gene' for the separate shelf parts--'biomaterial,'" Newt marks air quotes where necessary, "You and your dad would be 'stem cells' following the Hox gene's instructions to build a wooden 'organism.'"

"Alright well what exactly is your new instruction booklet trying to build you into?"

Newt nervously paws through his data. "Well everything so far points to Otachi's genetic blueprint, so most likely I'm turning into some iteration of her offspring. It would make sense then why the transformation is occurring so quickly; they would probably want that backup ready to go no more than a couple days after landfall, to make sure it could survive and get to smashing as soon after the mothe--uh, host's destruction as possible. Oh!" He digs into a stack of papers and it's almost _magic_  the way he knows where anything is in that mess, "and your tests came back. Slight hitch in the rhythm of your temporal lobe, pretty standard Drift Hangover; trace radiation in your blood cuz of the lack of shielding on the drift device itself--"

"You didn't put in any _shiel--_ "

"Hey, I built it from garbage in _one night_  and nobody ever throws away radiation shielding around here. Just get some Metharocin from Huan--and refill my prescription if you can. Not that it really matters much at this point since we're already turning into mutants--aha!"

He finally pulls out a thin packet and places it in Hermann's hands, "I henceforth declare you fit for discharge, Dr. Gottlieb. Text me about how much more comfortable normal beds are when you're back out there."

Hermann glances through the papers. He understands only so much of it to know that it's just a boring, normal scan of his boring, normal body, so he tosses it back on to the pile of data and swings the table arm as far out away from the bed as he can. He walks over to the Thermocycler and rights it at Newt's bedside, being sure to leave enough room for a nurse should an emergency arise before shooing Newt to the side of the bed so he could have room to settle himself on his left hip facing Newt and stretch his trick knee with a satisfied sigh.

"Thank you so much, darling, but I'm rather comfortable just where I am." Newt punches him in the shoulder again but snuggles into his chest to fall lax almost immediately. Hermann presses a kiss to Newt's sweaty hair and hugs the man in closer before drifting off himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you thought there was gonna be human porn in this. No dice, my guy
> 
> Edit: do you ever rewrite stories mentally but then forget to actually edit the story document? Cuz I do. A lot.
> 
> Comments always welcome! Message me on Tumblr @birdslikeoranges


	3. Bloodstain/Jackie and Wilson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.k.a. the one where I finally got to use the word 'breach.'
> 
> Heed tags! I promise this gets less gross eventually lmao

Hermann is stirred by a chill at his right side. He grumbles and burrows further into the warm shoulder at his front. "Bloody HVAC…"

Newt grunts and rolls them so he's blanketting Hermann's front, "Internal heat's a pretty moot point at the moment, honey." He dances his fingers down Hermann's chest, sending a far more welcome chill down his spine. "I'm sure we could make due. Solely for survival purposes, I mean."

Hermann blinks his eyes open and let's out a delighted laugh. The two of them are lying in a rolling feild choked by wildflowers--primrose, Campanula, anemone, red campion, alstroemeria, ranunculus, woodsorrel, meadowsweet-- all inclining gently about them, uncommonly tall and dextrous on the breeze to render them seemingly impervious to being caught under their

_bloodless, peach-and-ink stained, norm--_

forms. On a hill some distance away, a willow tree shakes and sways in the breeze. He nuzzles at Newton's hair, disappointed but not surprised when his sweet, earthen musk is still cut with iodine and copper.

"Figures I'd dream up some corny Stephanie Meyer shite with you."

Newton barks out his bright, lovely laugh and reaches up to pull Hermann down into a kiss. "Right? Especially with some trashy dumpster weeb like me."

Thunder growls over the distant mountains. Hermann dodges the kiss, frowning at the sudden shift in tone. "Don't say that, gorgeous."

There's a shatter of lightning and an explosion of thunder. The willow shudders and jerks at a sharp buffet of wind that flattens the flowers for miles. Newt writhes out of Hermann's arms and curls in on himself, humming low and _awful_  and strange.

"Newton, wha--?"

Another flash carves through the sky. Wild, iridescent green eyes snap to Hermann's, hunched shoulder's quaking like the billowing grass around them. The roll of thunder builds in slow mothion to a roar. Newt's breath rips into his chest and the cracks return as it expands, deep and withering and angry.

"I'm sorry Hermann," he mutters frantically as the cracks grow over his entire form and he begins to crumble away, "I'm so sorry, don't hate me, I just can't--" before he succumbs to ash on the wind. Lightning strikes and the willow tree explodes.

Brown eyes snap awake and Hermann's hand hits hot, blue sheets covered in heaps of viscera where Newton is meant to be. Loud gurgling snarls and the awful thump of flesh hitting steel don't keep Hermann wondering after him long; he's on the floor at his side in a number of moments.

"Darling--Newton, please! Get those things away from your--oh. Oh, Newton, oh.… "

Uncurling Newt's claws from his face reveal an incoherent, blue-splattered wreck of a biologist, his right eye crusted shut with dull indigo, the left leaking day-glo from two scratches down his face revealing a rolling, pulsing, lavenderorangerobin'segg _something bulging_  through split detritus that would have brought up Hermann's dinner if they'd deigned to eat any the night before. Below that, nearly-skeletal nose-- _full, disintegration of Major alar cartilage and surrounding tissue_ \--forces out sprays of shining fluid that hiss wherever they splatter with more steadily dripping blue over four massive fangs and rows of teeth where there had once been lips-- _I didn't let him kiss me_ \--and down his neck to form thick, steaming turquoise scabs on his chest with a distinctly unearthly, familiar swirl structure--

"--of coagulating blood along induction currents as poor venting and cardial overexertion slow-roast the deformity from the ins--Newt we need to slow d--oh _bugger fuck all._ "

Hermann leaps to the door as well as his leg is able--not very, given the early hour it must be--and throws it open. "I need a half milligram Lorazepam and a catastrophic trauma team on standby _immediately._ "

A nurse darts into a closet and emerges with the medipen. She's stopped short by the breached tent and horrid sight of blue Hermann's clothes are in. Hermann snatches it from her hands and hobbles his prize back into their suite. Newt is still wretching on the ground, though his tail (his _tail_  for heaven's sake) has taken up the brunt of the writhing, mottled greybluepink like the rest of him; a bulging, slithering, sickening deformity.

 _Stop that._  Hermann shakes that word from his head again and firmly grips Newt's shoulder. He chokes on a weak, gurggled cry and only wriggles faster.

"Rel--darling, please, I've just got to get at your--there we are."

He digs his fingers into Newt's thigh to measure for the injection site. When he brings it down, the trigger plate snaps inward even before it touches the scalding heat of Newt's thigh, eliciting a sharp croak that peters of into a series of quick shuddering sighs that soon stills, along with his tail. His jaw goes lax--if a bit _too_  lax by Hermann's recollection of Newt's skeletal makeup--and his…eye stops whizzing about in it's socket, instead twitching gently in Newt's drooping visage. He sighs and it manages to form a cloud of steam in the dry hospital air.

"Ah, there we are. Better now darling? Have you come back to us?" Newt makes a wretched croaking sound and gives an inelegant half thumbs-up that becomes random, bloodied pawing at Hermann's face. Hermann bats the hands away, his gag reflex flares instinctively at the caustic scent of baking gore and--no sense hiding from it now--kaiju blue emanating from Newt.

"Yes, very good, Newton. Now, can you tell me where it hurts?"

The biologist signals to his head--all of it, but also more specifically two odd new growths on either side of his frontal bone--along with his nose which Hermann can see is now almost skeletal in appearance, and the length of his throat down to his sternum, which hurt too. He also wiggles his arms, Hermann notes how his pinkies are half mush, the off angle of his wrists, the way his elbow swings a bit…looser than usual and the claws, which had grown a centimeter or two overnight; as well as his lower legs and feet, loose joints and long, curling bone mirroring his hands. The seams of his clothes groan in protest of new measurements.

"Alright, lovely job. Sit up for me, would you darling? Got to get a look at you."

The man nods but makes no effort to assist as Hermann props him upright against the wall. Hermann notices something bright undulating out of Newt's mouth, unfurling out of his split chin and writhing almost petulantly as it encounters acrid blood.

Summer 2015 breaks through Hermann's jaw like a right hook. He gives Newton's hair a gentle toussle. "Very good, darling. Now I'll just be a moment, I've got to talk to the nurses." Newt gurgles contently as Hermann rises and turns to the dumbstruck staff packed in the doorway, clean-suited and awaiting instructions.

"Well, did I author you a painstakingly thorough Gross Cognitive Disconnect protocol or didn't I?!" He stabs his cane at a startled brunette, "You: find me an Idioglottal Com Interface. And somebody get this poor man back into bed! I presume _someone_  here must have had time to do _their physical_  therapy this morning."

Newt would have laughed from his place in the corner if he hadn't been so preoccupied feeling thick, stinging syrup drool out from under his incredible new tongue down over his aching carapace. Lord knows he doesn't want all this ordering about to go to Hermann's head.

"Don't be _ridiculous!_ " Hermann shrieks from somewhere above him as he's hoisted quickly (carefully) back up to a fresh, sterile matress, "Dr. Geiszler is still _perfectly capable_  of rational thought! It'll do you well to remember he has just awoke in the hospital wing, _blind,_  to his blood boiling itself off through his skin. Ought to put _you_  in an induced coma for such a brilliantly idiotic suggestion. Get out if my sight this instant, and fetch Dr. Zhao while you're at it!"

If Newt's next gurgling fit of coughs sound far more like laughter, Hermann pretends not to notice.

∆∆∆

The next hour is achingly slow as Newt is bustled about, coming down from the worst of the sedative without sight or speech to guide him. He snorts in discomfort when the nurses take samples of the scabs on his eyes and torso to find no sign of infection aside from, well, the current state of Newton, so they scrub the blood from his hair and face and tape up the two seeping cuts. Before they bandage Newt's eyes with thick pads of cotton, Hermann sees them, whites glowing even in the harsh glare of the observation lights, irises doubled in size and pupils completely clouded over. When asked, he shakes his head to indicate he has no sight whatsoever.

His neck is gently scrubbed down to reveal shining, raw blue with a deep grey vein bifurcating his chin and throat until it meets his chest cavity where it becomes a swirling field of rolling ribs (the natural formatting for skin cell structure on a healthy, fully developed specimen) down to--ah. Hermann returns to studying the loose, shimmering skin around Newt's neck untill the nurses yank the sheet up over his hips to scrub his legs down, revealing thin splits of plating and callousing mounds on the knees and ankles that Hermann had presumed were layers and layers of caked on blood.

 _Much better than the alternative,_ he thinks.

They lean Newt forward on the bed to reach his back where a forest of spines is taking root. Three distinct rows trail down to where they diverge and wrap around the sides of his tail to a three-way split at the very tip.

The frontal skull protrusions have even Huan stumped when she arrives with the IGCI, so they hold off touching them until they open the line up to Newt.

It's another fourty-six minutes as Newt is bandaged and taught the controls-- _without even seeing them,_  Hermann can't stop grinding the head of his cane into the steel floor. Newt won't stop chittering. Hermann's right ear won't stop itching.

Finally, _finally,_  they've got the receiver under Newt's tongue and a patchwork of electrodes around his temples. There's some crumpled bits of language before a pleasant computer drones out,

" _Haven't ridden Benzo since college. God bless military medicine._ "

Newt yelps and flinches as the voice barks " _sorry_ " before Hermann can take a breath to chastise him. Hermann pinches hard at his ear.

"Dr. Geiszler, can you describe more in detail any sensation you're feeling around your forehead?"

A pause.

" _Not really. Headache. Hurts here,_ " He goes to tap the mounds but his proprioception is thrown off, sending his hand about a foot over his head. A couple more tries and he taps his forehead.

Huan stabs at her data pad. "Any other areas of discomfort? Anything internal?"

" _Neck hurts like expletive redacted._ " Newt huffs. " _Expletive redacted this expletive redacted keyboard._ " The trauma team titters behind Hermann. One glance from Huan renders them silent. "Everything kinda sore. Otherwise feel fine."

Newt grumbles and shifts his shoulders, neck cracking and popping, stretching up a good couple inches longer than a neck ought to, leaving the mouthpiece dangling from his jaw. He sighs heavily, throat puffing out and flashing blue along the thick seam. Hermann can't stop himself staring.

" _Does keyboard work sideways? My,_ " the voice pauses. Newt wiggles and huffs, " _my tail is sore._ "

Nurses bustle forward and turn him on him side--facing Huan.

"Ah!" Hermann yelps the same instant Newton's whole body seems to lurch, legs twisting and long toes clenching tight. Thankfully the nurses' focus remains on Newt, leading limbs and tubes and pillows to their new position, but Huan's attention has snapped to Hermann, dark eyes seeming to look through his own straight into where every neuron is trying to scramble out of sight.

A thought comes to Hermann's mind. He flushes. It's silly, but. Well. Since he's already made a scene:

"Hua--ahem. Dr. Zhao, would you mind terribly if we…switched sides?"

Her eyes flick to Newt. Back to Hermann. She continues peering at them both before she twists her nose a bit and nods as though she had puzzled out a great but fairly obvious truth. "Of course, Hermann."

The shift to his given name throws him but he doesn't comment further in favor of ending the moment as quickly as possible. He shuffles past her to the right side of the bed, imagines doing some sort of tag-team high-five to mark the occasion, and stands at Newt's head, slotting a clammy hand into Newt's feverish paw. He motions for Huan to continue.

She nods. "Dr. Geiszler, can you tell us a bit more about the moments leading up to your sedation? What set off the episode?"

Newt nods. Hermann can see his tongue feeling out the words through a slight shift in the glow of Newton's throat. Then suddenly he gives a small _yip!_  and drops the receiver.

" _Nightmare. Otachi was proud. Vain. Used tongue to pick off skin lice while caged in Anteverse. Felt tongue ripped out. Thought of what would happen if went back to cage without it and felt them digg--_ "

Hermann shudders at the image and sets the receiver right.

" _Lice were very effective method of keeping kaiju agitated in field. Woke. Skin still itched. Panicked, hypoventilated, almost overheated. When Hermann found me. Knew exactly what to do. As usual,_ " he leans--almost _nuzzles_ \--his face into Hermann's arm and starts growling. Or--no, more like that sighing, chattering noise Newt had made earlier but deeper in his chest, rumbling over the glimmering folds of his neck. It sounded oddly like Newt's favorite college roommate.

's cat.

What?

Oh.

_Oh._

Hermann does his best to remain composed but _My esteemed colleague and notorious rival is purring demurely into my wrist like a queen in Estrus,_  Hermann realizes, promptly crushing the inappropriate spike to his ego, and doesn't even have to look-- _Tits bugger ass_ \--oh, yeah, Huan is _absolutely_  still staring at him.

Newt's tongue curls wetly over his thumb.

Bugger.

Fuck.

There's several taps and a loud _ping!_  from Hermann's pocket. He looks up just in time to see Zhao's data pad slip back under her arm, "Well Geiszler, Gottlieb, you both seem to be doing far better than I last saw you, current additional appendages notwithstanding. Dr Gottlieb, I've just paged you the times for a few more tests I'd like you both to run once those sedatives have cleared out, but until then you are free to leave per Dr. Geiszler's latest report. I've also sent word to the Physical Therapy Ward and they will be on standby to run an assessment on you both." Her eyes flick down to where Newt's tongue is prodding at the webbing of Hermann's fingers, throat still rumbling, and flashes the barest hint of a half smile. "Dr. Gottlieb, I will leave you to designate the trainer of your choosing. _Bóhuí!_ " _Dismissed!_  The trauma team scatters out the door back to their stations and Huan clicks the door shut.

Hermann's lax jaw remains pointed at the door until an uncomfortable buzzing in his fingertips reminds him of a crucial factor of Otachi's biology.

"Darling--ah, Newton, _acid sack,_ "

The purr cuts short in a croak and Newt recoils his tongue to type out, " _Never ever ever say 'acid sack' ever again. It's a bile gland._ "

Hermann snorts, wipes his hand on his vest, and runs his other, clean fingers through Newton's hair. "Of course, darling." That earns him another short rumble. "You're a sight, I must admit."

" _Rude,_ " Newt grunts.

"Quite the opposite," Hermann states, running his thumb up one of Newton's largest fangs and digging in until he gasps, "it becomes you."

Newt's whole chest seems to light up with the trill that elicits. " _Gross._ "

Hermann smacks Newton's jaw with his knuckles before going back to running fingertips over dull, but no doubt still deadly, teeth.

"Who's 'gorgeous'?" _Bugger, nosey, why would you ask that out loud._

Newton whines and Hermann hears his tail clang against the bed's metal railing. " _Guy from college. Last trick I turned. Hot new Comp Maths teacher at MIT. Married, long distance; needed to blow off steam between breaks. I got too involved. Received PPDC contract, figured I'd done enough teaching anyway_." He shrugs and grunts a sort of 'what-can-you-do?' noise. It doesn't fool Hermann for a second. " _Who's 'honey'?_ "

Hermann sighs with a grim, fond smile. Bloody two-way drift. Figures Newt would know, fair he would ask ask, but it doesn't make the old moniker ache any less. "Vanessa, my ex-wife, used to call me that. She became unexpectedly pregnant shortly after our marriage and I was ecstatic. I told her I was ready to settle down, but she still had places she wanted to go and wasn't ready. I got scared and said vile, childish things as I packed, she didn't carry to term, our lawyers handled the rest over the phone." He resumes combing through Newt's hair, "We've reconnected since; Just this past summer she invited me to her reception," he chuckles, "shotgun wedding. She invited me to give me a chance to gloat in person."

Newt barks a laugh, liking her already. " _Did you take it?_ "

"Only a little; it was her wedding day, after all, and Errol's an honest bloke. Gifted me that pocket square with the daisies, actually." He pats decisively at Newt's thigh, "That reminds me: I wanted to go out and get a fresh set of clothes and perhaps check in with high command. Does that sound alright with you? Is there anything you'd like me to get?"

Newt grumbles and grips tighter to Hermann's wrist but the computer chirps out, " _Coffee. So much. Zune. Steak. Extra rare. Extra salt. Big bowl of mashed pavement with extra butter._ " He shudders and rumbles especially on the playback of that last request, shoulders sagging and heart monitor relaxing. Hermann decides he'll take a couple interpretive liberties for the kitchen staff's sake.

"Sounds wonderful, darling. And if I'm solicited regarding visitors?"

The chirp of the heart monitor picks up it's rhythm. A low chatter starts up from where the receiver has fallen from Newt's jaw, his tongue lazily spasming against it to produce a couple broken chunks of text.

Hermann scratches over Newt's to draw forth a a sleepy trill. "Don't fret, I'll tell them you aren't quite ready." He presses a kiss to tangled curls and sets the receiver on the side table. "Now get get some sleep, darling. I'll be back before you know it. Shout for a nurse to page me and I'll be back even quicker."

Newt nods and gives Hermann's wrist a last grateful squeeze before letting it fall to the bed. Hermann waits for the heart monitor to slow to a steady crawl-- _larger heart, new resting heart rate_  he reassures himself--before creeping from the room. He stops by the nurses' station to thank them and request they let Newt sleep and page him the minute he wakes.

"…and don't let him fool you, add at least one to whatever pain score he gives. If you could have PT in that alert chain as well? Get Fischer, he won't be too rough on him. And I want the entire assessment verbalized and in writing. None of those bloody lines through the checkboxes or he won't let me hear the end of it."

Unable to think of anything else to fret over, he pushes through the medbay doors back out into the Shatterdome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man I rlly shouldn't write backstories after watching Black Mirror. But alas, the angst monster in my belly craves infernal sustenance. >:V Also I got to use the word proprioception, man I frickin love all these big nifty science words I get to learn about and torment Newt with.
> 
> Comments feed my parched Leo soul!!

**Author's Note:**

> Guillermo del Torro's biggest wish in 2012 was to get brainfucked by a big sexy dinosaur and in the following essay I w--
> 
> Shoot me an ask on tumblr! birdslikeoranges.tumblr.com


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